Deepa Mann-Kler, CEO Neon chairs XR panel at BFI London Film Festival 12th Oct. 2pm.

Future Screens NI funding recipient, artist, Chief Executive at Immersive Technology company Neon and Visiting Professor in Immersive Futures at Ulster University, Deepa Mann-Kler will be moderating the panel discussion focusing on Extended Reality (XR) for the British Film Institute London Film Festival (LFF). The Escapism vs Confrontation: A Journey into Reality Through XR panel discussion will be held on 12th October at 2pm. The discussion will feature: Joel Kachi Benson, documentary filmmaker and Creative Director of virtual reality film studios VR360 Stories in Lagos, Nigeria, writer-director Natalia Almada, who won the Directing Award: U.S. Documentary for her film Users which also screens at LFF2021 with Joel Kachi Benson & Natalia Almada discussing their work with XR technology.

For more information on this and other LFF events visit: 

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news/industry-programme-65th-bfi-london-film-festival

Creative & Cultural Skills and ACNI offer Cultural Sector Employers free training for Fair Access.

Future Screen NI’s funding partner Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) have collaborated with Creative & Cultural Skills, the UK-wide agency working to support a skilled, accessible and fair cultural sector, to help strengthen the workforce and open up access to jobs, through a programme of free training. Cultural sector employers in Northern Ireland can now access the series of training sessions and 1:1 support free of charge, thanks to funding from the ACNI’s National Lottery fund. The training has been tailored specifically for Northern Ireland’s cultural sector and is designed to empower employers to adopt inclusive and lawful recruitment practices to support sector growth and develop a more diverse range of talent.

Sessions will take place online between September 2021 – March 2022 and will be led by Sarah Jones, Creative & Cultural Skills’ Head of Partnerships in Northern Ireland, alongside its UK-wide team.

For more information follow the link here.

Animator Corrina Askin completes R&D of animation shorts to support mental health awareness and wellbeing.

Future Screen NI’s Narrative Futures recipient Corrina Askin has completed the Research and Development project “Wilbur Story Moments” exploring the potential of reactive animated shorts to support positive responses in viewers. Working with the award-winning Visual Effects and Animation studio EnterYes, Corrina drew on her skills honed at the MA Animation, The Royal College of Art, London to create a series of animation ‘story moments’ to counter negative visceral or emotional reactions in viewers whilst supporting positive responses with an aim towards future interactive viewer engagement through voice and/or facial recognition technology.

This project was funded through the Future Screens NI Narrative Futures award.

RETìníZE completes R&D on XR application to BBC Rewind archive project.

Belfast-based Extended Reality producers RETìníZE have recently finished a R&D project funded by Future Screens NI exploring XR uses with the BBC archive through the BBC Rewind programme. The project drew on BBC Rewinds collection of over 13,000 clips including news reports, documentaries and lifestyle programmes from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s featuring a glimpse of what life was like in Northern Ireland, as captured by BBC NI. The aim of the R&D project was to create a headset-based XR interactive experience with the BBC’s archived content in new and exciting ways. The intended solution would enable users to navigate a large body of already-digitized BBC archive content in an immersive and intuitive way. The aim was to present the archive collection through a cutting-edge spatial interface that would display the content in ways that are both visually appealing and useful, in terms of sorting and filtering. RETìníZE successfully deployed an executable application to both the Hololens 2 and Oculus Quest 2. The research, development and testing of the project unearthed several findings that may prove useful to future projects that aim to incorporate spatial computing techniques to support exploration of large multimedia data sets.

TEAM

Warren Bell, BBC

Jack Morrow, RETìníZE

Jamie McRoberts, RETìníZE

Phil Morrow, RETìníZE

Co-Investigator: Dr Declan Keeney, Director of the Ulster Screen Academy, Ulster University

BBC Rewind currently hosts a collection of more than 13,000 clips including news reports, documentaries and lifestyle programmes from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. Work is underway to open up more of the archive from the 1980s and 1990s. This landmark initiative will make a large and diverse cross-section of the BBC’s archive publicly accessible for the first time.

RETìníZE is an award-winning immersive content studio that specialises in the creation of live action and animated VR content, as well as interactive and geolocative AR applications. RETìníZE are one of the UK’s longest standing immersive media producers with roots and reputations in high-end global film & television where, for almost twenty years, their parent company, Wild Rover Productions, has created TV shows for major UK and international broadcasters.

The Pixel Mill hosts Q&A with a Publisher workshop with James Schall of Secret Mode Thurs 30 Sept.

Future Screens NI partners Northern Irish Screen funded The Pixel Mill is hosting a Q&A with a Publisher workshop with James Schall on Thursday 30th September at 9:30am – 11am.

The workshop will be an opportunity for new and experienced developers to ask questions about video games publishing. James will cover topics ranging from how to pitch games, what publishers look at when considering a game as well as general game industry trends. There will be an option for companies to have one-on-one meetings with James to discuss projects after the Q&A.

The workshop will be held in-person at the Ormeau Baths, Belfast (with a limited number of people and social distancing measures in place), with an option to join remotely. 

If you would like to attend the workshop please email Rory Clifford, Pixel Mill Interactive Manager, rory@northernirelandscreen.co.uk. Numbers will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis.

James Schall is Head of Secret Mode at Sumo Group’s Publishing Division. He is a veteran of the UK games industry, spanning 30 years of experience at retail and publishing. James spent 8 years at Amazon.com working on their videogames offering and over 13 years at SEGA where he was VP of Global Digital business. James has extensive knowledge of Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo and other online platforms and services and the magic and secrets of unlocking success in an ever-changing games market.